June 11, 2013

Vertical Gardening...

Squeeze more vegetables into small spaces with trellises.

When you grow your vining vegetables upward, you use less ground space. This increases your yield per square foot because you can fit more plants into the garden. But saving space is just one reason to grow your plants on trellises. Here are some other advantages to growing up:

Monitoring and controlling pests is easier because they're right in front of your face.

Pole beans, Gourds, Melons.As a general rule, any variety with fruits smaller than a volleyball can be trellised. Vines will grow strong enough to hold the weight of the fruit, so there's no need to support fruits with individual hammocks.

Squash and pumpkins.Small-fruited and nonbush types, such as miniature pumpkins, and acorn and buttercup squash, are suitable for trellising. Here are plans for a simple squash trellis.